


to hold is to be held; or a study in teeth and lips

by livepoultryfreshkilled



Series: honey, if this plane goes down, i don't even want a parachute [3]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: ADHD Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, BPD Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Bisexual Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Bisexual Tom Wambsgans, Character Study, F/M, ITS NOT SEXUAL I SWEAR THERE ISNT A SINGLE SEX, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Trauma, Shiv Roy Goes To Therapy: The Prequel, Short Hair Shiv Roy, Therapy, Trans Tom Wambsgans, but you know me, dw im gonna write a giant fic where ALL that gets mentioned but we're not talking abt that rn, god how do i fuckin tag this, mentions of bondage, not mentioned but i just wanted u to know!, oh god. buckle your seatbelts i went insane on this one, went a little bonkers with this one ngl, yeah. im right. u kno it i kno it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livepoultryfreshkilled/pseuds/livepoultryfreshkilled
Summary: even when you're standing up you look like you're lying down. will you let me kiss your neck, baby? do i have to tie your arms down?
Relationships: Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans
Series: honey, if this plane goes down, i don't even want a parachute [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842073
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	to hold is to be held; or a study in teeth and lips

**Author's Note:**

> these fics are just getting increasingly specific to the canon i have written in my head and we're gonna reach a point very soon where you will have no idea what the hell i'm talking about. either that or i'm a genius

“I just don’t want to hurt you,” Tom says. He looks at her with his big sad eyes. Always such a drama queen. “What if I tie it too tight?”

“Then I’ll tell you,” Shiv smiles and raises her hands above her head. “C’mon, you said you were gonna try. Aren’t you gonna try,” she lowers her voice, “for me?”

Tom’s eyes flit from over her body, still in the negligee, then back up to meet her eyes. He swallows. “You promise you’ll tell me?”

She sighs, a little exasperated. “Yes, I promise. You’re not going to hurt me, you’re too much of a baby.” She cringes inwards, slightly. She has been trying to be less mean to him. 

That sad look is back, a gift she never fucking asked for. _Stop being so sorry for me. This isn’t a big deal_ . She feels like a bird with a broken wing when he does that, like he picked her up and is nursing her back to health. She adjusts herself so that her shoulders won’t ache and rests her back against the headboard. She’s no one’s charity case. “God, come _on,_ Tom, my arms are getting tired.” She smirks, “Don’t forget the blindfold.” He frowns deeper.

“This is _weird._ I’m not,” he sighs, his grip tightening on the silk tie, “I’m not this kind of guy. I don’t want you to think I need this.”

“Jesus Christ, Tom, it’s just tying me to the bed. It’s pretty fucking vanilla.” _Don’t yell._ She softens her voice. He is just being careful with her. “And it’s for me, I promise. I _want_ this.”

Another sigh. She’s starting to get sick of those. “Do you promise you’ll tell me right away if you want me to stop?”

Shiv groans in aggravation. _“Yes,_ fuck. I promise I will tell you right away if I want you to stop, Tom, cross my heart and hope to die. Can we get fucking on with it?” She’s starting to feel a little exposed now. He’s still wearing his stupid fancy striped pajamas, like a cartoon character from the 50’s, and he’s kneeling next to her. His back is bowed slightly, curled in on himself. Shiv’s getting a little tired of his blushing virgin routine. And, you know, she really feels more than a little naked, asking for this so brazenly. She’s not embarrassed of sex, of course, but she doesn’t like to desire things. Too needy. Too honest. She never learned the difference between _need_ and _want,_ and she doesn’t think anyone else has either. Makes for dangerous living, that mindset.

Tom still looks like a fucking kicked puppy, but he finally wraps the tie around her wrists and ties them, a little too loosely, to the post of the headboard. “A little tighter, hon.” He hesitates, but does it anyway. She thinks it’s hot. She doesn’t get why he doesn’t find this hot. She is lying prone, vulnerable in front of him, and he doesn’t appreciate it. _You put the muzzle on the wild dog, Tom, so stop acting like you’re the one who isn’t safe. You can finally tame me. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?_

He doesn’t look at her when he puts the soft black sleeping mask over her eyes. More suddenly than she expected, he disappears, and her world is enveloped in darkness.

“Is that okay? Are you still comfortable?” 

It’s weirder than she thought it would be. His voice seems clearer, with the blindfold on. Shiv will not close her eyes, even though it doesn’t matter, because she can’t see either way. She is so tense. She cannot see her own body. She feels goosebumps raise on her arms, because the room is very cold. _Did it get colder?_ “Yes, I’m fine.” She can _hear_ the fucking look this time, feel it on her skin like a too-warm wool sweater. It makes her itch. “What?”

The feeling of his warm hand brushing her arm shocks her a little. “I love you, Shiv.” _Oh, god, no._

She forces a laugh. “Thanks, honey, I love you, too.” Shiv can’t see him, she only feels his hand, and she’s starting to feel the cold tickle of fear climb up the inside of her throat. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. This was supposed to be her solution, her new plan to stay in Tom’s bed and still satiate that endless hunger inside her for a cold, bloody night with a faceless man. Have her cake and eat it, too. Why does he have to be so fucking weird about it? She’s trussed up, tied down, she can’t fight him anymore so why doesn’t he just _take_ it already?

“Honeybadger, is everything okay?”

“Yes, I already told yo—”

“No, not,” and she can’t see him, but she knows he’s waving his hand around, because Tom has always spoken with every part of him, “this. I mean with _you._ Are you okay?” _Fuck._

_This is not what she wanted!_ She wants to get up and run away now, to turn her back to him so he can’t see her face. She can’t. He tied her to the bed, he did it because she asked him to, and now she wants to kick and scream until he lets her go. 

“Can’t we just have sex?”

The disembodied hand on her arm freezes. The thumb stops moving in soft slow circles. She didn’t even realize it was doing it until it stopped. She feels her face heating up, she is embarrassed, she said the wrong thing. Now they’re going to have a _conversation._ She fucked up, and now she is going to be punished. She hates this. She is relieved she cannot see how he is looking at her. 

_“Shiv—”_ but Tom catches himself. He clears his throat, attempting to suppress the emotion in his voice. He’s apparently caught on to how she’s been reacting to his pity. “Uh, Shiv, I’m not—I don’t want—can we talk? About, like, things? For once?”

She gives a fake chuckle. “We always talk about _things,_ Tom.”

“But we don’t, is the problem. We just _tell_ each other things, and then you run away.”

Shiv bristles. _This means war._ “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.” She tries to make her voice as cold and sharp as possible. “I’m not sure if you do, either.” She hopes that one stung, to give her a head start, but she can’t see his reaction to be sure.

“It’s just, I _told_ you I was unhappy, you _told_ me that you missed me—”

_“That’s fucking talking—”_

“But it isn’t, Shiv! It’s saying how you feel, which is different. That’s what we’re _supposed_ to do, all the time, that’s what people do when they’re in a relationship. But we don’t have _conversations_ . I tell you one thing, and you tell me one thing, and then you kick me in the shins and we have to act like it didn’t happen. That’s not fucking fair, Shiv. That’s not normal.” Shiv flinches at _normal,_ even though she doesn’t mean to. He’s not even yelling. She is acting like a coward. 

“Fuck off, Tom.” 

“Oh, god, no, I didn’t mean—”

“Fuck _off,_ Tom. Fuck you and whatever fucking high horse you rode in on. I am normal, and this is normal, so you can just grow the fuck up.”

“Shiv—”

_“‘That’s not fair.’_ You sound like a fucking child.” Oh, there it is. Logan Roy’s voice has successfully found itself in her throat. “You’re so fucking condescending,” and her voice is raising, and she feels a little ridiculous with her arms in the air. She can’t imagine how she looks. The room is too fucking cold for her to be wearing this stupid slutty negligee, even though her face burns. She doesn’t know why she thought Tom would be able to handle this, even though it’s something a normal person should be able to handle. “We don’t have to have some fucking come-to-Jesus moment. This is not a big deal.”

_“No_ , Shiv, we _do_ need to talk, actually talk, have a real, actual back and forth about the way you treat me.” Shiv inhales sharply. She would very much like to leave. Even though it’s only May, she wishes they’d turn the air conditioner on. The room is so hot, too hot, a dry heat centered in her face that is going to burn her to death. “We need to talk about what happened with Logan.”

_“No the fuck we don’t.”_ Shiv is on fire, now. She wants to hit him. “Don’t you _dare_ fucking bring up my dad. You don’t know shit about what happened with him, and even then, that doesn’t have anything to do with us. You don’t know shit about anything—”

_“Because you don’t_ tell _me shit about anything!”_ Another flinch. She hears him audibly gasp. If he apologizes, she will kick him in the face. “Shiv—”

_“Shut up!_ _Shut the fuck up!_ My dad is an asshole and it doesn’t have shit to do with anything! If I get fucked over it’s my fucking business, Tom. Maybe I don’t tell you shit because you’re too fucking stupid to handle it, did you ever consider that?” She can hear her voice shaking and she wants to scream. She wants to run. She means to take a breath, but she exhales too hard for it to help. “Untie me right the fuck now.” 

“Why, so you can run away?” His voice is shaking. He’s going to cry, and she’s going to win. The bitter taste in her mouth is either bile or victory.

“Yes. Untie me.”

“No, beca—”

_“FUCKING UNTIE ME!”_ She _is_ screaming now, and her voice breaks. She will not cry, because she is an adult, and she will act like it. Shiv kicks the mattress, hard. “Do it!” 

_Wow,_ she thinks, _very mature._ She can feel her mother’s breath in the shell of her ear. _Look at you, Siobhan. Look at yourself. God knows who raised you to be this way._

Tom takes a deep, shuddering breath. She can hear the tears in his voice when he speaks. She’s ashamed of him. Tom has always been so emotional. When he speaks, his voice is soft, like he is soothing a wounded animal. Shiv sits with her legs close to her chest, crossed at the ankles. The position she’s in is so inherently vulnerable, arms raised, neck bared, she cannot defend herself. So she does what she can. Shiv pulls hard at the tie around her wrists. She feels the expensive fabric tear and ruin. She knows she can’t break it, or break out, but it’s calming (it’s familiar) to destroy something. As long as she has been alive, Shiv has known the feeling of wanting to make everything in the world feel as bad as she does. She has known it better than herself. “Fuck you, Tom.”

“Siobhan, we have to have this, _a,_ conversation. We can’t keep doing this thing where you keep running away from me, and I just follow you around like a fucking _dog,”_ and he takes a breath, and he calms down, and that’s coal in Shiv’s neverending fire, that little gesture of kindness. He is angry, and she is screaming, but he still won’t hurt her. She keeps baring her fucking neck, begging for him to crush her throat, but he just kisses it. Every time, he just kisses it. Why does he always have to act like he’s so much better than her? “I want to work this out with you. We have to talk about this if we want to be okay, if you want me to stay. I love you, Shiv. Please,” and when his voice cracks, she sneers, as cruelly as she can, “please, work with me here.”

Shiv swallows the lump in her throat. It tastes like blood. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking child.”

“I don’t like to, Shiv! You make me! If you kick me, I have to treat you like someone who kicks me! I don’t want to treat you like a child, Shiv. Do _you_ want me to?” _And there it is. Nothing more than another man’s daughter, all your life. There you have it, there it is._

Shiv is quiet after that. Her face is stinging, and her arms ache, and she just wishes she had never done this in the first place. That’s always the lesson, isn’t it? If you doubt things, if you get ahead of yourself, it will burn you. If you want things, if you say it out loud, even just to yourself, it will burn you. It is in your blood, your DNA, your very nature, to stab yourself in the back. So they sit there, in the quiet. She breathes. _That is not true._ It is not going to burn her to want him. That is the only thing he is trying to say.

She feels his weight shift until he is sitting next to her, leaning against the headboard. She imagines that he is tied up, too. It helps. “No.”

“No?” She almost gets angry before she realizes how long they have been sitting in silence and that Tom is probably unsure of what she’s saying “no” to. “Oh! Right.” He clears his throat. 

He was distracted. Shiv is panicked, just for a second, that he wants to fuck her like this. Even though she said that’s what she wanted, the thought of Tom wanting her like this makes her blood run cold. Because he could take advantage, if he wanted to. But he couldn’t, could he? He couldn’t fathom it, the poor fucker, wanting to pin a woman down. He likes her in pajamas more than lingerie, he wants to look in her eyes when he comes, he cried the first time they had sex. Tom is physically incapable of tearing her body apart, hurting her in the biblical sense. _I’m not this kind of guy._ And he really isn’t. That’s kind of the problem.

“Do you,” and in her mind’s eye, she knows he’s waving around his big stupid hand again, because he’s so fucking predictable, “do you want me to take off the uh, blindfold?”

She falls silent again. _No._ She does not want to see him. Or, more accurately, she does not want to see him see her, with her red face and red eyes and red lips from biting them, hard, because she is trying not to be the overemotional cunt she knows she is. _Oh, there it is again. Look where desire has gotten you now, Pinkie. Look at the fucking predicament you’ve gotten yourself into._ The sound of her father’s voice, of her own, burns that patience she had summoned. She’s never been very good without her rage. The things she tried to learn when Tom left were tainted by a delirious sorrow, an angst she has never allowed herself to feel before, so she throws them out. They are not clean. 

For once, she hears Tom’s voice. It is warm and soft, disembodied, like how she would imagine God, or a faceless narrator. _You don’t throw away a dirty dish, sweetheart. You just wash it._ And you’re right, you’re so right, because Shiv cannot afford new silverware.

But no, it is worse to submit voluntarily; she has to fight until he holds her down and clicks that collar around her neck, maybe even until he tightens it enough to cut off her airflow. She can’t remember why it has to be this way, she only knows that it does. 

Shiv decides she doesn’t have to say anything. Tom can sit here and talk to her about whatever he wants, but she doesn’t have to tell him shit. They can sit here until they both rot, for all she cares.

“...Shiv?” _Fuck you._

She doesn’t move. Shiv is stock-still, like a beautiful statue, all hard, cold rock and sharp edges. Her chin is jutted out, her chest is puffed, she has never felt shame in her life. No wonder he is in love with her. Everyone in the world is. But then she hears him shift, and the marble cracks, and she is afraid of everything again. The imaginary president of the Shiv Roy Fan Club has been assassinated so many times it’s not a shock anymore. If a gunshot goes off in Ford’s Theater, will anyone look up from the play?

“I, I’m,” Tom stutters. She hates it when he stutters. Kendall had a stutter until he was 16 years old, and she remembers making fun of it alongside Logan and Roman. It is a relief, she recalls, to hate something more than yourself, even if only for a second. She is angry, because she cannot see him or move away. She is angrier because it is her fault. 

“I’m going to take the blindfold off. If you don’t want me to, uh, please say something. Okay?” She is still motionless.

“Shiv?” 

She has one card left, and she will use it until it falls apart in her hands. 

She does not want to tell him that she wants to keep it on. She does not want to talk. She wants, (and she is ashamed of it, don’t worry, she is still ashamed of it) she just wants him to hold her in the quiet dark. She wants to be a little girl, _his_ little girl, she doesn’t want to do this anymore. There is a tiredness in her bones that goes to the marrow, an exhaustion of more than just this night. It’s been every night, for as long as she can remember. She wants to sleep. She wants to cry. She wants to put on some fucking pants, at least.

She feels the heat radiating off his hand before she feels it touch her skin. She jerks her head away from it, tucking her face into the crook of her arm. His sigh, this time, is very clearly exasperation. _Good. Now you can do what you should have done a long time ago. Put down that animal when it is sick, don’t just drag it through the painful remainder of its life. No matter how much you love it, you are selfish if you prolong its suffering._

“Shiv.”

She stays quiet. _Grab me. Force my mouth open. Take the words out. I know you want to. Please, god, tell me you still want to._

The sourness in his voice is like lemon in a wound when he tells her, “Can you use your words?” 

That’s what she wanted, for him to be mean, so her eyes are not supposed to burn in response. Shiv does not understand why she kicks the dog until it bites her; Shiv does not understand why she still cries when it does.

“Yes.” Muffled by her own arm, her voice is so much smaller than she wants it to be. _Whatever. So he pulled the curtain up. It never really mattered, anyway._ They let out a relieved sigh in tandem. Neither of them had realized they had been holding their breath.

The silence this time has softer edges. Halftime, she considers, or maybe just intermission. _Take 5, everybody._

She tries to picture what they must look like. Her; blindfolded, hair cut short in that ugly way only time can fix, fading red blotches of unjustified anger staining her pale skin. The stupid negligee. Her whole body, tucked into the inside of her elbow, like a child. Pseudo-fetal position. Full-body pout. Him; arms crossed, the worry lines that grow deeper every day even more pronounced with his eyes downcast, his ugly too-expensive pajamas that he insists on wearing. Red-rimmed eyes, maybe. He is tired, too. He is pouting, too. They must look so ridiculous. Tom has a very unique knack for that. She smiles, but only a little. Her face is still turned away.

Shiv can feel Tom, his weight, his heat, transferred through the air and the mattress and the wooden headboard they are both leaning against. She knows exactly what he looks like. She knows exactly where he is. How frightening, to be so sure of someone else.

Shiv realizes, impossibly, that he came home. She traveled, she cheated on him, she told him on their _wedding night,_ she disrespected him over and over again, she didn’t listen to him, and he came home. But of course, you can only come home if you have left it. And he did leave, which made (and makes) such perfect sense. It was only strange that he had stayed so long. She had been anticipating it, she realized, his run for cover, ever since she first realized how much she liked him. Not loved, just liked. _Enjoyed._ She enjoyed him; his company, his presence, not only what he did for her, but what he _did_ , when he was simply around, puttering through his own life in a way so ridiculously sincere. Shiv realizes then, like a bucket of ice water is being dumped on her head, that Tom is her best friend. Maybe the only she’s ever had. And that must be sad, she assumes, but she doesn’t have a point of reference. Friends have always been a luxury she can do without. Right?

Shiv admits she lost her mind when he left. Not to anyone, or out loud, of course, but to herself. It’s allowed, isn’t it? After everything, she’s allowed a little mental breakdown. When Tom left, he took Mondale with him. Shiv was surprised at how much she missed Mondale, because she never really liked dogs. She has always had a compulsion to kick whatever is in that dog crate, make it fear for her life, like how baby psychopaths burn ants with magnifying glasses to feel big. But she missed Mondale, because he was a big sweet thing who put his head on her lap when she was on the couch. She missed Tom. Maybe she was human, after all.

_All this self-pity, Siobhan. You never were one to wallow, were you?_

Shiv was bad enough to drive Tom out, and she got worse when he was gone, but he still came back. And he loves her. Even in the middle of it all, when she deserves it the least, he still loves her. And that’s what threw Shiv off; that he came back not because she had gotten better, but because… what? Because she had gotten worse? Was that all he needed, her off her pedestal so he can prove once and for all that he can heal any broken bone?

Shiv’s throat is closing up. She has to yell at him or she’ll suffocate. Probably. She can’t risk it. _Back to our regularly scheduled programming._

“You get off on this, don’t you?” She pauses just long enough for Tom to start a sentence, only to cut him off. She wants to spit glass: “You like that I can’t move or see. You like that you’re finally in charge,” but it comes out wrong. Too vulnerable. Too honest. This does not cut him. She can’t read the cue cards, and she was never good at improv. The studio audience is dead silent, and so is Tom.

“No, I don’t, Shiv. You literally made me do this. I just want to have normal, boring, married sex with you, where you can move your arms and open your eyes.” He doesn’t even sound mad, he doesn’t sound like anything, and that is scary, too. He is stating a fact. He is only telling the truth. “I love you,” he adds, like he just remembered to tell her. Just for safety. Just to say it. Just so she knows. His voice is deep with a very worn softness she is too tired to resent. They are both so tired. Siobhan is very pragmatically aware of just how tiring she is. 

Shiv tugs at the silk wrapped around her wrists with all her strength. She hears it tear again, a little, but it is not enough. _Nothing is ever enough for you, is it?_

She refuses to cooperate, so instead Shiv just waits for it; waits for the _I know you know this,_ the _say what you mean, use your indoor voice, be a big girl and eat your vegetables._ But it doesn’t come. It doesn’t come because she asked Tom not to talk to her like a child. It doesn’t come because Tom respects her. And he cares about her. And he loves her, so fucking much. And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? _Such a lovesick fool. Your heart is where your self-interest should be, Wambsgans. You should get that checked out._

So, in gratitude, Shiv gives him an “I know.” But she begs him, wordlessly: _Was that good? Did it help?_ You know you’re going to have to walk me through this, even though you’ve done so much already, and I can’t promise I won’t kick you for it, either. But tonight, lover, my legs are tired, so I will wave the white flag and try my best. It still won’t be very good.

She has to tell him something. She has to. She cannot cut her hair any shorter. She cannot lie on the floor any longer. If she goes to sleep in one more empty bed, she will not wake up. 

“I have to tell you something.”

She hears the mattress creak and feels the phantom fingertips touch her knee. _Gingerly, they ask permission to stay the night. She grants it, on the condition that they stay for breakfast._ She brushes against the silence where he knows not to ask her anything else. He knows her.

“Right?”

“I’d like you to.”

Shiv sighs. Clunks the back of her head on the headboard. Tilts her face up, even though she can’t see anything. It’s the thought that counts. 

“Whatever, so. With my dad. On the boat. He told me that it was going to be either you or Kendall.” The sentences come out choppy and stilted, and dead, really, but they do come out. “I don’t know why he fucking asked me, of all people. Probably just to get his rocks off on watching me pick between my brother or my husband.” It didn’t even matter, after all. Clearly, there had been a plan the whole time. It was never up to her. It’s never _been_ up to her. He just wanted to make her squirm. 

“I asked him. For it to, you know, not be you.” _Was that it? Is that what you tell your husband?_ He wants a conversation; she doesn’t even know what that is. It’s the same with love for them, you know; she doesn’t do anything she can’t win, but not everything is a competition. She’s so fucking tired of going against, though. She is not water, she cannot erode rocks indefinitely. She is a human being, or so she has been told.

Her body feels so heavy, Shiv is almost relieved for the wrists bound over her head. They might be the only things keeping her from dropping like a stone.

“I picked you over my family,” she clarifies, like there was some way he could’ve missed that. She needs him to know what it means. Shiv is the girl who cried I love you, so she has to show him the wolf when it comes. And it always comes. 

“Our family,” is the only thing Tom says back.

It shocks her. She tells him, “no,” but she’s not being defensive. She is protecting him. She would never make someone she loved a member of her family. “I wouldn’t do that to you.” She breathes out the smallest laugh, because it’s a little funny. Black humor.

“Shiv, If they’re your family, they’re my family. You’re my family. I,” she hears his voice break again. Something else breaks too, in both of them. “I love you, Siobhan, I love you so much. Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is so thick, she can tell he’s crying. He really can’t cry, because she’s only barely holding on.

She opens her eyes behind the mask. Nothing changes, really, just a few strands of light that snuck between the threads. She feels a hot tear make its way down her cheek. Just one. It’s not her fault, she’s just too tired to fight it. “ I don’t know. I don’t know why I don’t talk to you, Tom. I don’t do it on purpose, I promise.” She winces, imperceptibly, when she hears him stifle his own sob. _One day,_ she vows to him, silently, _one day,_ _I promise, I will know how to apologize. One day I will know how to love you how you want me to._

When she asks him, “Will you let me go now?” it comes out small and dead. She doesn’t even care. She just wants to lie down. 

He sniffs. “Oh my god, Shiv, yes,” the sudden displacement of his body shifting on the mattress shocks her slightly. Not enough to get her out of this coma, but enough to make her aware of it. He unties her wrists so quickly she can tell that it was all he was thinking about. She realizes, guiltily, that the whole time, he must have only been looking at her hands. Not her body being presented, not the soft milky-white legs showcased by _that fucking negligee_ riding up them, not her breasts, shown off by her lifted arms. Not what she told him to take, because Tom has never taken from her. Tom just looks at her hands. When she is on display like packaged meat, consumer goods, Tom will look with his big puppy-dog eyes at the wrists she forced him to bind. She will never stop being grateful to him for that.

The silk holding her up disappears. They’ll throw away the tie later tonight. It cost one hundred and seventy-five dollars. 

When wrists are freed, the arms drop only because of gravity. A head is supported only by what’s behind it. Siobhan’s body could very easily slip off this bed and fall into a pile on this floor; it is just an object, after all. _Raggedy Ann, meet Raggedy Andy._ But he’s always been more held together than her. Better manufacturers, probably. Or maybe it’s in the stitching. Maybe it’s in his stuffing, in his fabric, in his blood, to be a better doll. A better man. It’s never stopped him from playing with her, though. If there’s anything she’s learned about the difference between her and Tom, it’s that sometimes, things that are expensive are worse. 

Tom doesn’t reach for her blindfold, because she didn't want him to. It can’t be good for him, the sheer volume of things he does for her. How selfless. How reckless. How unbearable, to face the love of someone as kind as this. Mother Teresa died poor, you know.

“Can you take the blindfold off?” she asks him, so softly she’s not sure he can hear.

Very quickly, the mattress shifts again and she feels a hand touch her face. _God._ It’s almost unbearable how softly it cups her cheek, that big, warm, safe hand. _Tom’s_ hand. Connected to Tom’s body, that loves her and has loved her for so many nights, nights better and worse than this. Connected to Tom. Shiv is connected to Tom. It _is_ unbearable. She feels the mask slide off, gently, gently. There is light behind her eyelids now, but she keeps them closed. If she looked at his face, she’d disintegrate.

He hugs her. He holds her. He is warm. He is real. With all her strength, Shiv wraps her arm around his neck. Shiv holds him, too.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you,” and she doesn’t understand why he’s reassuring her like that until she notices how wet the fabric of his pajama top that she has her face pressed into is. She is crying, and she didn’t even know. It’s like it’s not even Shiv’s body anymore, she’s only tangentially related to it, just passing through. When she burns, when she freezes, when she aches, it’s just _sort of_ happening. Shiv hasn’t lived in this body in so long, she’s not sure there’s enough room in there for her anymore. She’s not sure if there ever was. 

“I’ve got you,” he reassures her softly. The intimacy of his hand on her head makes her feel like she’s going to pass out. That human touch is more than she can bear. “It’s alright, darling, sweetheart, I’ve got you.” _But do you? Does anyone? Does it even matter? I won’t stop holding onto you either way. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health._

Shiv hears muffled sobs, violent and wracking, and realizes that they are her own. She has not cried like this in so long that the sadness has to tear its way through her, wash the dust out of her tear ducts. Her body is seizing up without her control. She’s not even very sure what she’s crying _for,_ but it doesn’t matter, because Tom’s got her. He’s got her. He always has. She knows that a real man would bite his shoulder until it bled, but her teeth have been getting duller every day. And that’s really quite fine. He can just cut her food up for her. 

She brushes the hair at the nape of his neck; she holds his head, too. Shiv can feel his tears fall onto her skin, too. 

After a few minutes, or maybe hours, possibly even days, Tom breaks the silence. 

“Do you want me to get you some clothes, honey?” His voice is so raw. 

“Yeah.” Hers, too. 

Shiv does not cling to Tom when he gets up and heads to their dresser. She just clenches her fists in the bedsheets and tries taking deep, soggy breaths that rattle through her chest. _What a fucking night._

She watches Tom rifle through the clothes. His back is turned, there is no audience. She sees the back of his head, the hunch of his spine, the movement of his shoulder blades under his pajama shirt. She sees his hair, thinning only slightly at the crown of his head. She has known him and his body for so long, and it is not different. It has changed, but everything is still the same. 

When he comes back and hands her the clothes, Shiv does not grab Tom’s arm. She does not throw her arms around his neck and let him hold her weight, so he does not carry her. She wishes she could do it, just let herself fall, but she can’t. There is something wrong with her, she knows this. Shiv cannot touch her husband like she wants to. She does meet his eyes, though.

When Tom leans down and cups her face in his hands, Shiv uses every ounce of strength she has not to flinch, so she doesn’t have any left to stop her from letting a couple tears fall when he kisses her. It’s chaste, and firm, his warm lips against hers. A reassurance that everything is still here, that even if the world crumbles down on top of them, he will shield her from the rubble. She vows, in that moment, that she will shield him too. When she kisses him back, it is an act of surrender in the most literal sense: she is not going to fight anymore. She is going to be a gentle person. 

Tom has always kissed her so sweetly, because he is a sweet man. That’s all it is. That’s all it ever has been. Shiv knows this. She lets him hold her head in his hands, not only because she knows he will take care of it, but because she knows she needs to let him do so.

Tom leaves the room while she changes, like a gentleman. She says “thank you” too quietly for him to hear. 

Alone now, Shiv takes stock of what Tom has given her: a pair of light blue pajama bottoms, because Siobhan Roy does not wear sweatpants; one of his t-shirts, because Tom knows she likes to sleep in them. They are formless, and they smell like him, like a force field protecting Shiv from her own body. From that murderer standing over the bed, her knife poised above Shiv’s bare throat. You know, the one with her face. Her father’s voice. Her mother’s eyes. The only thing that is her own is the knife.

She bites her lip, hard. She has already cried once, and that is all she is allowed. Even alone, even if no one would know, she is still held to these strict rules. All her life, Shiv has not been able to tell if she is well-principled or deeply repressed. In the long run, what’s the difference? Either way, you’ll always have good posture.

Shiv closes her eyes when she takes off the putrid fucking nightgown. She knows it’s not the real villain, it’s just silk and thread, but she needs to put that shame and hate _somewhere_ . But it’s an inanimate object. Shiv chose it just for this night, something to make this tired old body glow. _You can put lipstick on a pig,_ she can hear Caroline chide. Shiv knows she lives in an attractive body. She is a beautiful building infested with plague rats. Shiv has always been all sparkle, no substance; she only works out her glamor muscles. Practical advice for the young lady: if you’re really not much to look at, make sure to dress well; and, if you are, make sure to fuck him good enough so that he won’t notice how dead your eyes are.

When she is dressed, Tom knocks on the door. Once, a few months after they had moved in together (a different apartment, a different universe, roughly two thousand years ago) Shiv locked him out of their bedroom for a night. She can’t remember why, just that she was angry, volcanically upset, and that she didn’t want to look in her boyfriend’s eyes that night because she would try to put them out. She figured he would just sleep on the couch, a minor enough hardship to go through. If he was really mad, maybe he’d leave for the night. Men like Tom don’t suffer from a shortage of warm beds. She hadn’t really put much thought into it. When Shiv opened the door in the middle of the night, Tom had brought a pillow and blanket from the living room to sleep on. His giant body was curled up smack in the middle of the hallway. She did not realize that he would do that. For a moment, Siobhan was human, and she did not know why. She could not understand why she would feel bad that he was putting himself out for her, why she worried about how his back would react to the hard wood of the floor. She was too scared to wake him up and let him back into the bed, but she did leave the door unlocked. _That wouldn’t help though, if he was still asleep, would it? I’m sure you know that._

But now, in this moment, Shiv lets him in. To the room, to... Whatever. To the bed. _Their_ bed. She rests her head on his chest and prepares for impact. Despite the abnormal length of this night, she knows it is not yet over.

“What would you think about going back to therapy?” Tom isn’t looking at her, just brushing his hand over her head where he would normally play with her hair. 

“What would I _think_ about it?” It’s not that Shiv’s still trying to be difficult, she just wants him to say what he means.

“Would you go back to therapy,” Tom replies without inflection. She can tell he’s too tired to enthusiastically jump through Shiv’s hoop. She knows: she can do this all night, he can’t; she knows: it’s not up to stamina anymore, but empathy, which is something Shiv is very good at pushing down. She knows she is going to have to try harder.

“I mean, I did that already, Tom,” and she’s not fighting him, she’s _not,_ she just doesn’t know how to loosen her grip on anything. “I just... I don’t think that really works. On me.”

Tom does not tell her that therapy isn’t just a one-and-done hurdle to clear, that it’s supposed to be a resource and not a chore. Tom does not tell her that if Shiv told her therapist as much as she told her husband, it’s not very surprising it didn’t help. Tom does not tell her because he knows that _she_ knows. Tom has never forced Shiv to do anything. She wishes he would, sometimes. It would take the pressure off, so that if she fucks up, it’s not on her. But that’s not how it is. She is going to grow up. Her life depends on it. _You’re not a little girl, Siobhan, what_ are _you?_

“Do you think it would help?” _Tell me, please, hold my hand, I am blind and deaf and you have to let me know what the hell is going on. I am begging you, Tom, to tether me here. When you let balloons float away, they will pop. They always pop. And I know I will pop, eventually, but I just want you, someone, something, anything, to be there long enough to watch me die._

“If you let it.” That’s fair. It stings, but she figures he’s allowed that. “Would you?” You have to answer the question, Siobhan. You might not be tied to the headboard, but you still can’t run away.

“Okay.” _Was that so fucking hard, you little baby?_

“Okay?” He’s excited, he’s happy. How badly did he think she needed therapy? 

“Yeah, okay. Jesus, how fucked up do you think I am?”

He politely ignores her incitement. “Will you talk to her? Like, actually talk?” _Her._ That was undiscussed. She guesses that makes sense, that it would be a woman. She’s never really gotten along with other women, but she’s never really gotten along with anyone. 

She considers telling him: _Yes, even though I don’t know what that means. I don’t think I know how to be honest, but I’ll try. Yes, for your sake, because your body can only take a limited amount of blows. For mine, because my body can only throw a limited amount of punches. For both our sakes, because I love you, and you love me, so much, too much to be good for you, and I just want you to hold me like you used to. Yes, for God’s sake, Tom. For the dog’s sake._

Instead, she says “fine.” His relieved sigh is almost comical in its dramatism. He is so familiar. She knows the man in her bed so well, and she loves him so much, and they will have to work in the morning and every morning after that, but tonight they are in love. Tonight, for once, they are both here.

“Oh, thank God! Can it be over?”

“What?” 

“Like, the whole… debacle? The sadness and the yelling? I feel like I’m gonna cry again, I just want to cuddle you.” _Oh my god._

“Oh my god.” She buries her smile in his chest. He has always been so emotional. She feels him press a big kiss to the top of her head and huffs a laugh that she hopes sounds more placatingly amused than overwhelmingly fond. “Yes, it can be over.”

He shifts them so that Shiv is completely enveloped by him, half on top of him and half on the bed. His arms are impossibly warm, holding her to his chest. She looks into his eyes and _oh, there it is._ There’s that burn in her throat, there’s that discomfort that only comes when she feels unbearably safe. There he is. There’s Tom. He is smiling at her, because he knows they will sleep easy tonight.

“I love you, honeybadger.” He has always given her the weirdest fucking nicknames. One time, she recalls, he called her his “little pickled yam.” She still has no fucking idea what that means.

“I love you, too.” And she does, really, truly love him. She has never been so certain that she is telling the truth.

-

Tom drives Shiv to her first therapy appointment with Dr. Jímenez, who they have thoroughly vetted. They settled on her after phone interviews with a few other therapists, whose respective flaws Shiv was eager to pick apart. Dr. Jímenez specializes in victims of childhood abuse and trauma, which they have silently agreed to never mention. They have agreed on meeting every Thursday at 6 PM, and, if that goes well, she’ll go on Tuesdays, too. 

Tom and Shiv ate danishes on the drive over, and he subjected her to 15 straight minutes of Hall & Oates (she gets to pick the music on the way back). They are okay, at least for now. They are holding hands in the car, in the elevator, in front of the check-in desk. Shiv tells him that he does not have to stay in the waiting room, she can always get a car home. He says he knows he doesn’t have to. When she comes out of Dr. Jímenez’s office at 7:04 PM, she sees Tom sitting in a chair he is much too big for and playing a game on his phone, it is not because he knew that is what she needed, or because he just wanted to: he wanted to because it is what she needed.

Shiv does not know what music she will play on the ride home, and she is okay with that. She can always ask Tom for help.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE talk to me abt tomshiv im livepoultryfreshkilled on tumblr! if you leave kudos we're kissing and if you leave a comment its with tongue


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